There are two issues at play here. The first is that soft buttons, gesture recognitions and 'smart' UIs are applied tastelessly to give impression of futuristic

There are two issues at play here. The first is that soft buttons, gesture recognitions and 'smart' UIs are applied tastelessly to give impression of futuristic product. UI design is very hard and I hope that best patterns will prevail over time. There are also many good examples of transition to digital UI and I like to think things are getting better. The second issue is, in order to operate UI, you have to form a mental model (simulation) of it in your mind, in order to execute your intention. In analog days the controls were limited by space and cost, so UIs were simple to use. In digital age same UI surface can be used for different actions depending on context. It creates additional burden on user to hold this context in his mind, to know about all possible contexts and how to move between them. If you are surrounded with many such devices, all with different usage patterns, you will curse their designers often. I wish every digital interface would also have friendly API for remote control so I could build my own simplified interface for existing devices.